Australia's Same-Sex Marriage Postal Vote Is Starting To Look Like A $122 Million Shemozzle

Ballot papers are still being mailed out, but a few key lessons have already emerged from the Turnbull government’s $122 million postal survey on same-sex marriage. Less than a fortnight into the voluntary national ballot, which runs until November 7, the first thing apparent is that the Australian electoral roll is a mess.

The second issue is one long-suffering apartment residents have long complained about – that delivery standards of Australia Post’s dying letters business fall well short of the expectations of customers, despite claims from an executive team paid millions to the contrary.

Thirdly, the survey result, as a consequence, is now in danger of looking as credible as the Saddam Hussein’s 100% unanimous vote in Iraq’s 2002 election, which, depending on how willing you are to reach for a conspiracy theory, may well be the result the vote’s political advocates were seeking in the first place.

On the weekend, ABC reporter James Fettes posted several images on Twitter of survey envelopes lying strewn around letterboxes in Canberra saying he spoke to a neighbour who says this happens “regularly”.

Fettes said he found “dozens” of survey envelopes in Braddon left wet from rain and on the ground outside seven different apartment blocks on Saturday morning. It seemed that the mail was placed on top of the mailboxes rather than inside them.

An Australia Post spokesperson told the ABC she was “confident” that the posties had delivered the survey letters securely and the police should be called if anyone suspects their mail is being tampered with.

But back to the electoral roll. We received four ballot papers yesterday at our Sydney address, home to two registered voters. From what we’ve seen, that’s a far from isolated incident.

What surprises me most about that is the former residents of our house, who left two years ago and still live nearby, presumably voted in last year’s compulsory federal election, where they would have been asked to confirm their details at the ballot box, as well as recent compulsory local council elections.

Here are two middle class professionals who seemingly haven’t updated their electoral details in two years, but were required to vote. How many Australians are in a similar situation if this vote inspired 5% of voters to update their records?

It’s impossible to tell — and perhaps the sheer weight of averages will smooth out all the discrepancies — but the volume of similar anecdotes at this early stages is alarming.

Our house has done as the ABS requested with the two extraneous ballot papers and marked the envelopes “Not known at this address, return to sender” and posted them back.

But right now social media is awash with people holding wads of ballot papers in their hands – and more alarmingly, comments from supporters on both sides of the debate urging them to fill out the surplus papers and post them back.

The problem appears so widespread that ABS deputy statistician, Jonathan Palmer, who is leading a team overseeing the survey roll out, issued a warning on the weekend that it was a criminal offence to tamper with someone else’s mail, even if it’s incorrectly addressed.

“If you receive a survey form not addressed to you, do the right thing and just return it to sender. It’s illegal to open others’ mail, unless you have their express permission as a trusted person,” he said.

“Stealing or tampering with mail is a criminal offence that carries serious penalties.”

But here’s the rub in a debate where both sides push the boundaries in an attempt to gain advantage.

The ABS says on the letter accompanying the ballot paper that “Your response is confidential, by law. It cannot be connected to you. The ABS will destroy all information collected after the survey.”

If so, what’s to stop widespread rorting of the vote when less scrupulous people think it’s anonymous? Anyone on Twitter is well aware of how quickly morality evaporates under the guise of anonymity.

Yes there’s a bar code, and the ABS says that from September 25, they’ll issue replacement ballot papers to anyone who requests them. The previous form will be invalidated and “if it has been received its response will not be counted”, but that requires a lot of motivation on the part of voters who need to follow up on a voluntary ballot in order to police the integrity of the system.

And the voluntary nature of this ballot is the big “if” in the result of this survey. If less than half of eligible voters – around 8 million – respond, you can bet the losing side will discount the result as ignoring the “silent majority”.

If the result is close, you can bet the losing side will point to the litany of stories about lost ballot papers as proof of tampering by their opponents.

How big will the win have to be in order to be emphatic?

The government put the postal vote up as a Plan B after the senate twice rejected its plan for a national, compulsory plebiscite and while it will continue to blame the Labor opposition for thwarting its plans, it proceeded with the voluntary postal vote on the basis that it would provide clarity on the future direction of the issue and unite the nation.

Instead, it’s starting to look like an even bigger mess over an issue that’s already divided the country and until November 7, looks like it will continue to be a bitter national debate.

Comments

Ogre Guest

Sep 21, 2017, 8:53am

What surprises me most about that is the former residents of our house, who left two years ago and still live nearby, presumably voted in last year’s compulsory federal election, where they would have been asked to confirm their details at the ballot box, as well as recent compulsory local council elections.

I have known many people to never update their address on the electoral roll, even if they move to a different electorate. They simply perform an absentee vote for every election. Which is crazy, because they are then voting for a candidate that doesn't represent them at all!

It's all moot though. The result, regardless of how pans out, won't progress the matter from a legislative standpoint. If a majority "yes", Labor/Greens will state a mandate for change and LNP/other conservatives will state it's not binding, not representative, flawed, etc. If a majority "no", then the opposite will occur.

A certainty is this has cost a great deal of money and wasted parliamentary time. Both could have been better spent on other things. This should either have been a proper referendum or sorted out by those who are elected/employed for this very purpose.

As has been pointed out many times, a referendum can only be conducted to change the constitution. The Marriage Act is not part of the constitution and changes could be made by a simple vote in parliament as John Howard did years ago.

In terms of consultation, we taxpayers have funded at least two expensive senate inquiries into the matter, with huge levels of public submissions from individuals, groups, churches etc.

It's all moot though.
It's moot but not for the reason you're saying.
Labor has said they are going to make the change next time they get elected even if the public says no, and they will be removing their part conscious vote [1] , so anyone that crosses the floor can be suspended from the Labor party [2].

I don't think it takes much of a reach to believe that illegitimacy is desirable, and even a preconceived aim, from the conservatives' point of view. After this survey is complete, they'll need to launch a review "in light of the many stories we've all heard, of ballots not being delivered, and people voting fraudulently" and delay the inevitable until after the Christmas recess, at the very least.

"It’s illegal to open others’ mail, unless you have their express permission as a trusted person,”

If I didn't open mail arriving at my house and use that information to contact the sender, I'd still be getting new monthly mail for people who lived at my address twenty years ago. Marking envelopes with Return to Sender, and a note that person has moved does absolutely nothing.

With so many items marked only with an anonymous po box for return, opening the mail is the only way to get a phone number or email address that can usefully be used to re-route the item.

What surprises me most about that is the former residents of our house, who left two years ago and still live nearby, presumably voted in last year’s compulsory federal election, where they would have been asked to confirm their details at the ballot box, as well as recent compulsory local council elections

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